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How could he hide it from me? All this time, all these months of texting, and talking, then the time I spent at the farm house, the time he spent here.

I didn’t see the truth behind Jer’s façade either, and we were together for years.

I sink into the sofa, pull the throw blanket up over me, and just let it all marinate. I wish Gogo was here. She’d rub her wet nose on my arms and let me pet her velvety ears.

It’s too much. Danny has a secret business? Why didn’t he tell me? I knew about Penny. She told me, most of it. Not about how it happened. My heart hurts for her, thinking of a child going through all that alone. But why is Stranger looking into my family? Who is he?

It’s humiliating. I fell in love with the perfect man, trusted him, believed in him... and all along he was lying to me, faking it, pretending.

I was so happy before he came into my life. I was in love, engaged, had a best friend and a good family. And now? It’s just a mess. Not that I can hold him responsible for Jer’s lies, or the mess with my parents...

I grab my phone and start a text to her, but before I can hit send, a message comes through. It’s her.

Annie: Seriously Mia? You were cheating on Jer? It’s like I don’t even know you. It’s like someone replaced the kind, thoughtful, generous Mia with a selfish bitch who thinks of no one but herself.

I toss the blanket aside. I can’t yell at Stranger, but I can sure as hell yell back at Annie.

Mia: Either you care about me as a friend or you don’t. We’ve known each other for nine years. We’ve been best friends that entire time. You think I’m selfish? Look in the mirror. If I weren’t Jer’s ex-fiancé, if I were just Mia, your best friend, what would you ask me now? Have you even thought about me?

Annie: I’d have been way harder on you. I’d have asked you to take a long hard look at your life and ask what the hell you’re thinking of. Did you even think about the future you just destroyed? It was all so perfect and you just fucked everything up. For what? Some freak with tattoos?

I guess Jer told her about Stranger. He’d been standing in the hallway wearing nothing but a loose towel. His brightly tattooed chest, all hard and rippled, his hair still wet.

It’s like that scene from a movie where the woman comes home to find her husband in bed with a hotter, harder, prettier, younger woman wearing red lace lingerie.

Jer came home to find a taller, harder, hotter, tattooed, bristly, rugged, naked man in his ex-fiancé’s apartment.

My heart sinks. I get why Annie is mad. I understand. I would be angry too if someone broke Danny’s heart, shamed him that way, maybe more so if she was my closest friend, someone I trusted, because I’d feel betrayed too.

Mia: My choice to end it with Jeremy has nothing to do with the man he saw me with. It has everything to do with the lying. He was cheating on me, gambling and drinking and lying about it. He didn’t tell me about the debt, about any of it.

There’s a long pause. Long enough that I wander through my apartment, gathering all of Stranger’s things. The book from the side table. The phone charger from the living room. The toothbrush. A pair of briefs, a t-shirt from the bedroom. The unopened Christmas present he brought with him. I didn’t get him anything.

I bring the t-shirt to my face, bury my nose in it and inhale. Soap and Stranger. My eyes burn, my nose prickles, and the tears do come now.

I shove all his things in a bag and drop it by the door like it’s on fire, climb into the shower, lay down on the tile and cry.

I cry for Jer, the boy he was and the man he’s become. For Annie and the loss of a friend. I cry for Danny and Mom and Dad. I cry for Stranger, and myself, and all the dreams I had when I was a kid and none of them involved an internet crazy person. I’ve never been so humiliated, so ashamed, so degraded. I cry for all the things.

I bared my soul to a man. I gave him every single little part of myself I’d ever hidden from anyone. I let him see inside me, the good, the bad and the shameful.

I don’t know how long I cry, but at some point, my fingers turn to prunes, the water runs cold, and I have no tears left, so I get out of the shower, dry off and climb into bed without even brushing my hair.

An insult to the word book. A catastrophe. I’d ask for a refund, but no one can refund my time.

Last time, Stranger made me feel better, but this time, I have no Stranger, no wild distraction, no desperate hope.

Linda@wetpanty.org: We regret to inform you that due to personal reasons, we can no longer offer an interview to you.

I HOLE UP. Text Mom and Penny, tell them I’m sick. Then ignore my phone entirely. Nothing good happens on that nasty black-magic device of evil. Occasionally it lights up in the corner, casting an eerie glow around my darkened bedroom. Eventually I think—I hope—it dies.

She bangs on it for a while, shouts through the door about ungrateful daughters, deep betrayals on the holidays, some maternal guilt about making her worry, and leaves.

When I open the door, there’s a bag containing my Christmas stocking. Santa still visits their house. Beside the bag is a Tupperware containing leftovers from Christmas brunch.

I eat it in my pajamas watching Christmas movies, crying into gingerbread men and the little peppermint cookies Mom makes every year.

I would have been with Stranger right now, naked but for Santa hats, probably having mind-blowing sex. Or maybe just talking, joking, laughing... beyond conned.

I wake in the early evening, drooling on the couch, to someone knocking at the door.

She looks... perky, with her long black hair, a red sparkly sweater. She has makeup on.

I look down. There’s a mystery stain on my gray sweatpants, and I’m wearing Stranger’s t-shirt. It’s covered in crumbs.

I dust off the crumbs but make no move to open the door. I didn’t bother with deodorant or a brush after my cryfest in the shower yesterday and I’ve barely gotten out of bed since. “I think maybe I smell.”

“Then let me in. You can go shower while I unpack,” her voice comes through the door.

“Fine,” I grumble, pulling open the door. “Don’t look at me. I’ll be back in ten.

I round on my heel, take the fastest shower known to man, and come back a few minutes later, squeaky clean, in a pair of yoga pants and sweater.

Penny cleaned up while I was gone. The place looks a bit better. But the bag of Stranger’s things still sits by the door, a gross reminder of my own failings, my thousand mistakes, my insane arrogance in thinking a man who looks like an enormous tattooed god could actually want me for... me.

She’s sitting at the dining table. I try not to remember how Stranger and I had sex right there, but it’s impossible. He wore the Santa hat, and went down on me for so long I cried for him to stop. The memory sends a sex-flashback straight to my vagina so sharp and so hard I wince.

Penny sits placidly with two glasses of wine and a plate piled high with Christmas ham and all the fixings. “Sit down and tell me what’s going on.”

She cocks her head to the side, her dark hair glimmering under the lights of my tree. “I won’t tell anyone anything, Mia. I’m really good at keeping secrets.”

“Promise not to judge me? You can laugh, I don’t mind being laughed at...” I have to suck on my lower lip for a minute because the tears threaten to come back. “I just don’t think I can handle judgment right now.”

I take my seat, sip my wine, and spill... everything, starting right from the beginning, the very first PM.

Penny listens in a silence that is truly impressive. Not very many people can keep their mouths shut and just hear. I certainly can’t.

But she does. She just listens to me talk about the mystery, the excitement, the fear, the doubt. Then the sex and the trust and the love. And finally, the heinous truth. Lies, darkness, secrets, so much shame.

“He was good, celebrating when you were accepted to the Wet Panty thing. He knew what you needed.”

I tuck my feet under me, tugging at the fleece socks. “I don’t really see any other reasonable explanation.”

She rolls her wine glass back and forth between her hands. “Well... like with your mom, you just assume the worst possible explanation is the only one.”

“Maybe your dad can’t get it up. Maybe she needed cock. Maybe your dad knows. People have... understandings sometimes.”

“I guess my point is... your mom loves you, and she loves your dad. Maybe you could give them the benefit of the doubt.”

I play out a few different versions. I like all of them better than the reality. “It’s wishful thinking though. That’s what I keep doing with Stranger, trying to paint it all pretty pink and happy.

I’ve done that my whole life. Avoided the ugly, the real, the hard. Sought out the happy, the sexy, the fun. It’s easier to pretend not to see it. And that’s exactly the type of thinking that brought me to this dark place. I didn’t see the truth when it was right in front of me. Jer was lying to me. Stranger was lying to me. Neither of them actually loved me at all.

I toss my head back, blow air up at the ceiling. “Depends on who he really is. I’ve had some insane ideas. Ones that I’d cook up for a book. The most obvious, the most simple explanation is that he’s deranged. Some kind of sadistic maniac who was stalking me.”

She nibbles on a peppermint cookie. “That doesn’t seem simple or obvious. That seems really hard to believe. He didn’t seem deranged or sadistic up in Finger Lakes.”

“I’m serious, think about it.” She plops her foot up on my coffee table, between a sculpture of horses I got in Beijing, and a hot pink gorilla Erica got me in San Diego. “You’re biased, determined to make yourself the center of the mess, it has to be your fault for not seeing the truth. What if it’s not about you?”

She takes a long thoughtful sip of her wine. “I mean... I think you’re saying the simplest explanation is that he’s a maniac, because then all you can do is blame yourself. Then it’s about you and your own mistakes. But what if it isn’t? What if it’s about Jeremy? If he’s really been gambling, embezzling, drinking, seeing prostitutes... I don’t know. What if Stranger was investigating him and he got close to you in order to get information on Jeremy?”

“Maybe.” She wrinkles her nose up. “It just seems easier to believe that, than that Stranger was some creepy stalker guy. He doesn’t look like a creepy stalker guy.”

I laugh, because I’ve had that same thought so many times. “How do you know? How many creepy stalker guys do you know?”

“So much. I need to send out emails to vendors, the band, the venue, the guests.” I look down at my wine. It’s almost gone. I need more. “I have to send back so many presents.”

She laughs. I love her already. “No. Helping people declutter, get a grip on their lives. Tomorrow, we’ll print up return labels and pack everything up. Then we’ll reorganize your entire house, tackle cancellations, and get your life as organized as we possibly can. And soon, you’re going to have to turn on your phone.”

“And the day after that, you will speak with your mother. But tonight... we’re getting drunk and watching a chick movie. We’ll eat the rest of those cookies and we won’t talk about Stranger at all... unless you want to. And if you need to cry, that’s cool too.”

We find The Bodyguard on Netflix, and stay up too late, and drink too much wine, and eat too many Christmas cookies.

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